At 09:18 AM 8/23/01 EDT, you wrote:
>But the loco/boiler doesn't rocket off anywhere - just the escaping steam
and
>metal parts head off in all directions.
The article cited has been written by someone who knows little or
nothing about steam locomotives or boilers and is inaccurate on several key
points. While continually referring to the "the boiler’s crown form heavy
iron casing" the damage described, as well as the area pointed out on the
locomotive illustration, is to the throat sheet, which is consistent with
the description of the type and location of failure. It seems to me the
author was much more interested in a goried up tabloidizing the story than
getting the technical facts straight.
The fact is that the majority of documented evidence shows that
locomotive boilers did not catastrophically fragment as this article
describes but tended remain virtually intact, and when under full working
power did regularly become airborne in cases of crown sheet failures.
What has all this to do with Ga1?
Regards,
Harry Wade
Nashville, Tn
